prayers for rain
by miriya v
Summary: Speaking from the heart is sometimes impossible -- but the thoughts remain. A Lulu PoV


This fic is japanese-version oriented -- you know, the original. Yuna /didn't/ say "I love you" to Tidus at the end of the game. She said "thank you." Why the american version was so changed, I'll never know...but they sure did some...creative altering. e_e;;   
  
Anyway. This is a Lulu PoV -- not the one I was planning before, which probably still will be coming in the near-to-somewhat-distant future, but something that just sorta attacked. e.e;; I don't want to say too much about it, seeing as I'm not quite sure what to think of it, myself. So, hey, these notes will be short.   
  
Random: Why do so many people assume Lulu is some skanky, sadomasochistic goth? Looking at her personality, I could /never/ see it. (She actually kinda reminds me of my mother.) The whole Wakka/Lulu thing really throws me for a loop, too. e.e;;   
  
Warnings: Nothing really. Spoilers for some of the game relationships, and thus, the end of the game, a little dealing with death.   
  
Fun with Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just borrowing them for a little angst and recollection, and I'm putting them back unwrinkled when I'm done with them. And I'm not making any money from it -- not that there would be a chance in Spira that I'd ever get money from something of this nature anyway. x_x Is that disclaimer enough? I love you, Squaresoft, even if you /did/ botch the translations/voice acting of Xenogears in english. (Shitan, however, is still a little bemused.)   
  
And with that, here it is.   
  
  
  
Prayers for Rain  
a final fantasy x fanfic by miriya valentine  
  
_Only the phoenix arises and  
does not change.  
And everything changes.  
And nothing is truly lost.  
-- Neil Gaiman_   
  
I'm sorry I can't help you now. For these last months -- for years, even -- I've stayed by your side, trying to take as much of your burden as I could. But now...now, I am useless. Perhaps it is only my own doing that leaves me thus, but there are things that I know, things that I cannot tell you. I just can't speak the words.   
  
But I know what you're going through. As stupid as that may sound, especially from me, I understand.   
  
We're not really so different, not at all.   
  
I once loved a boy. So totally that I didn't know what to do -- I wasn't my own anymore, the things I felt and knew had all been been flooded with that huge, endless warmth that fills you until there is nothing left: the kind that you know will surely kill you if it were to ever die. It was everything, and even when that warmth was drowned and crushed in some unknown ocean, it couldn't stop. I love him still, though it's been years and years. It just never stopped.   
  
Like me, I'm sure you knew what he wouldn't tell you -- there was always that sinking feeling in the back of your mind when you held him, wasn't there? That dark little voice that whispered, that told you someday he would go away forever and there was nothing you could do, no words you could say that would be able to stop it from happening. I always knew he would go -- I felt it, every time I held him close. I knew when he left that sunny afternoon that he wasn't going to come back. I'd never see his smile again, I'd never feel him at my side.   
  
I didn't stop him, either. Like you, I watched him go off into the unknown while my tongue was twisted with a thousand things I would never get another chance to say.   
  
Even though I felt it happen, I didn't believe them when they told me he was dead. I couldn't.   
  
They must have thought me cold, or maybe they thought that I didn't love him; but while the village mourned, I stood with myself. Alone. I held you and Wakka against me as you both sobbed your hearts out for the loss of Chappu...but I didn't cry. I didn't wring my hands and heart and grieve.   
  
I waited.   
  
Because I knew he wasn't dead. Even though I felt that emptiness well up inside me like a raging flood...even though I felt him go, long before the news arrived from the battle...   
  
He couldn't be dead.   
  
I could still see him in the waves, when I'd stand on the docks and watch him smile for me. He kissed me when I lifted my face to the rain. He still held me in his arms when the night went cold, beside the village fires. He still whispered to me in the summer breeze, told me all those things that I wasn't brave enough to say. I was never strong enough to live comfortably outside myself.   
  
_He couldn't be dead._   
  
I remember when I finally accepted the truth. I remember what it was like to lay sobbing against the cold ground, knowing that he wasn't coming to back to me. When you held the fragments of your heart in your hands, cupping them like sand -- I was there once, too. I watched them scatter to the winds, bright and shining like glass, like tears -- I felt that emptiness, too. I felt like I was dying, so soon after finally realizing I was alive. One is only capable of so much strength before everything breaks. You're strong, though; so much stronger than I ever was -- I know you'll make it through.   
  
  
I never told him that I loved him, either. But I'm sure he knew. I'm sure they both did.   
  
I know what it's like to be where you are. I know it hurts, and someday, you too will realize that the pain never really goes away, though it may dull a little with time. Maybe you'll still catch him in the fading colors of the sunset...maybe you'll cry. Maybe you'll become like me.   
  
But don't give up. Listen to his half-heard whispers during the storms; don't speak. When you feel his arms around you; don't turn around -- you won't see him, either. But you'll know he's there, and you'll know he still loves you. He's still watching you, and maybe someday, you'll be able to feel it, too.   
  
Believe me. I've heard, I've felt...and I have faith.   
  
_Don't let him go.   
  
--fin_   
  
random thoughts: hrm. Finally wrote a Lulu PoV -- no matter how I keep re-writing it, it always feels just a little rushed. Even though it's something I started a while back, I thought of a good deal of this while in the shower last night, and it wouldn't leave me until it was done. (of course, it was also sharing thought-space with my christianity-laced Auron fic plot bunny) Thus, I decided to finish it this morning (3.20 a.m.), while I still had the chance to get at least a little sleep before work. ~.~   
  
Does it sound like Lulu at all? Was I the only person to see the parallels, however faint they might be, between Lulu's relationship with Chappu, and Yuna's relationship to Tidus? I know that she's projected as a rather...chilly character in the American version (and even, to an extent, in the Japanese version), but I've got the notion that there's a whole labarynth of unexplored ideas and emotions that she never shows. And so, I poked the flashlight in and looked around...and you saw what I came up with. ^^;;   
  
Did you like it? Any comments/reviews/criticisms are greatly appreciated.   
  
miri-chan  
  



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